Tara O. Henderson, MD, MPH
Photo: Tara Olive Henderson
Elected 2021

Dr. Henderson is a pediatric oncologist and health outcomes researcher who is a Professor of Pediatrics, Interim Chief of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital and is Co-Leader of Cancer Prevention and Control for the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She completed her pediatrics residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, her pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship at the Boston Children’s Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and received her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. Her scholarship addresses the late outcomes of childhood, adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer to inform both new treatment paradigms and long-term follow up care. Dr. Henderson’s scholarship is focused on the development of subsequent malignant neoplasms (SMN) in childhood and AYA cancer survivors. In identifying risk factors for SMN, she has led the development of screening guidelines for survivors at high risk for breast and colorectal cancer and is leading NIH-funded intervention studies to improve screening for colorectal cancer and genetic predisposition genes in survivors. Importantly, Dr. Henderson has taken her observations in long-term survivors to inform the development of clinical trials for high risk pediatric Hodgkin lymphoma and more recently, to lead an all-ages early stage Hodgkin lymphoma trial between the pediatric and adult cooperative groups in North America. In addition, she has developed the first international high-risk neuroblastoma survivor cohort to understand the long term outcomes of patients treated with novel approaches including immunotherapy and biologic therapy. Dr. Henderson serves on the ASCO Board of Directors and the NCI Cancer Prevention Steering Committee, was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Committee on Childhood Cancer and Disability, and was a 2018 Presidential Leadership Scholar.